The Last Leaves Falling (26 page)

“Hey! This is good.”

Mai giggles. And Kaito joins in. And behind the counter the old man smiles.

Yes. This is what I’d do with my last days.

57

Almost before the door is closed, Doctor Kobayashi says, “I heard about Yamada Eiji’s passing. I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “I didn’t know him.”

“No.” She pauses, offers me a sympathetic smile. “But in a way, you did.”

“I just . . .”

“Yes?”

How do I explain it?

This room, with its neatly ordered files and tiny tree, is too small for my fears. Too
safe
to set them free.

Which makes no sense, even to me, but it is true.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s hard, right?”

“Yes.”

She continues, “Watching someone suffer, watching them die, it changes you.”

“Yes.”

I think she suggests strategies that I could use to cope—write poetry, or go for long walks underneath the trees—but I don’t really hear.

“Doctor? Does it . . . have to be that way?”

“What do you mean?”

“The way Yamada-san ended.” I want to tell her about the Dying with Dignity, the SWAT teams. I want to ask her,
Is this thing for me? Will they
help when it is time?
“Does it have to be like that? So . . .” but I don’t know how to say it.

“Not always.” She smiles again, and it’s almost reassuring. “Everyone’s death is different.”

I really hope she’s right.

58

I am actually maybe going insane imagining where those applications might be sitting right now. On a plane. In a sorting office. In a
dean’s
office. Oh! It’s awful.

Tell her.

I can’t, Sora. I . . . I have to do this.

RIGHT. THAT’S IT. WHEN ARE YOU FREE? WE’RE GOING FISHING.

Fishing?

Fishing?

YES! ALL THREE OF US. AS SOON AS WE CAN. FISHING HELPS RELAX THE MIND, RIGHT?

I suppose.

No relaxing of the mind for me. My mother has my tutor coming over allll weekend to practice interviews.

:(

Maybe next week, if I can impress her, make her think I’m ready.

YOU CAN. YOU’RE BRILLIANT. NEXT WEEKEND THEN. :)

59

“This is nice, huh?”

The three of us, Mai, Kaito, and myself, are sitting on a roof terrace in the center of the city. Below us are power lines and streets bustling with traffic, but we are in a tiny scrap of paradise: green toy grass crisscrossing a grid of deep blue pools. The silver tails and bubble-mouths of koi flick across the surface. There are a few other people here, mostly by themselves, staring deep into the water, but it doesn’t matter. It might as well be our own private world.

“Yes.”

Mai leans back on her hands, stretches out her legs so that they cast shadows out across the water.

A curious carp nuzzles the surface, perhaps thinking she has food.

“Yeah,” Kaito sighs, and jiggles his plastic rod.

“You won’t catch anything like that,” Mai giggles.

Across the terrace a business man cheers, noisily, as his catch is weighed and then released back into the pool. There is a game to be played up here: fish for prizes, and that guy just won big.

“I had you marked as the competitive type, Kai,” I say, remembering conversations about bonus levels and epic fights.

“Out here, no. This place isn’t about scores. It’s about the bigger catch.”

“The what?”

“The bigger catch.”

She looks across at him blankly.

“Life.”

“Ohh . . . wait. Isn’t it about
escaping
life for a while?”

“Yes. But I don’t mean that. I mean, this, here, us . . . It’s not about the game, it’s the
experience
of sitting here, on fake grass, high up in the clouds, and talking to your friends.”

Mai smiles serenely, and dips a toe into the water.

I imagine the emperor-fish swimming beneath her. Although he could never live in a place like this, I think he would approve of us taking the time to
be
.

We sit for a while. Kaito sips from a soda can, and Mai leans back and stares up at the sky.

“There’s a dragon!” she says, pointing to a giant fluffy cloud.

I crane to see. “That’s no dragon. It’s an elephant.”

“No way!”

“It is far too plump to be a dragon! Don’t you think, Kai?”

“Nooo,” she protests, “it’s a very well-fed dragon. He ate lots of sheep-clouds. And foolish nay-saying teenagers.”

“All right, all right. It’s a dragon!” I concede.

“Thank-you!” she chirps. “And that one’s a—
aaurgh
!” She bolts upright, frantically wiping her face. “That was
rain
!”

As I look up, the dragon-elephant is swept away, replaced by a roiling black sky, and before we have a chance to move, it falls.

Mai screams, covering her head with bare arms. Rain rumbles against concrete and water and plastic. It pockmarks skin and flattens clothes in seconds.

“Let’s go!” Mai scrambles for our things as Kaito hits my brakes, and we run for the awning at the far end of the rooftop.

We huddle, along with a few sad-looking businessmen in water-heavy ties, shivering as the rain hammers at the plastic overhead. Mai hugs herself tightly, and Kai shifts from one foot to the other. We’re wet, and cold, and sticky-heavy-gross. And as I watch the water bouncing off the tumultuous pools, I laugh.

“What?”

“It’s just . . . it’s not about the game. It’s about—” I snicker, and when I finally muster the breath to speak, my friends’ voices join mine: “The
experience.
”

60

“Oh my goodness, Sora! What happened to you?”

“It rained.” I cannot keep the smile from my lips as I remember the feel of it against my skin, and the three of us huddled together like penguins.

“I can see that. Didn’t you take shelter? You’re soaked right through!”

“It was fast.” I shrug.

“For goodness’ sake. Come inside. You need to get out of those clothes. I’m sorry”—she nods toward my friends—“but Sora has to go now.”

My friends step back and let her bustle me inside.

“That’s all right. We’ll see you soon, Sora,” Kaito mumbles. My mother is already closing the door.

“Mama!”

“You’re shivering, Sora.”

She peels my jacket from my skin, and I see the gooseflesh on my arms. She’s right. And I feel it, all at once, a cold that reaches right into the marrow of my bones. How did I not feel cold before?

“Come on. Let’s get you to the shower.”

She wheels me to the bathroom and turns on the water before removing my T-shirt and helping me stand. My jeans feel like they hold a lake of water, and I wonder how my mother lifts me up, but with my weight leaning against her, she unbuttons my jeans and helps me out of them before setting me back into my chair and pushing me beneath the warm jets of the shower.

“Can you manage?” she asks.

Truthfully, it is getting harder. The soap is slippery, and my arms are weak and stupid. But I am not ready for that yet. Besides, all I want is to get warm.

I nod, and she steps outside.

I sit, let the water hug my skull and pour over my back until I notice just how cold my legs are, and I twist a little so the water can warm them, too.

The water from the shower feels nothing like the rain. Not just warmer. Softer, too. As though it’s freshly laundered. I sit here, the water warming me through piece by piece, and imagine Kaito and Mai and me sitting not in the rain but in a sauna, staring at steam clouds on the ceiling.

That one is a baby! Look!

Warm water traces the outline of my smile.

Finally, when I’m sure the shivering has stopped, I shut the water off and reach for the towel hanging on the door. I rub myself down as best I can with clumsy hands. “Ready, Mama.”

And my mother slides back into the room, ready to help me dress.

Ten minutes later, we are in the kitchen and my mother passes me a cup of tea.

“Here. To warm you on the inside.”

“Thanks.” I take a sip. She has sweetened it with honey.

I sip, and sip, and my mother leans her head against her hands and watches me.

“Better?” she asks after a moment.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Good. You know, I was worried about you for a while, but you seem to have made good with those two.”

Even though I came back soaked and freezing?

I do not think my mother knows how to be sarcastic. . . .

“Yes.”

“Yes. I like them. Especially the girl.” My mother smiles extra broadly, and the air hums with the insinuation.

Oh.

“Mama, we’re just friends, that’s all.” I picture Mai, twirling across the street. I see her in the ice-cream shop, hiding her smile behind both hands as she laughs. But my words are true. I want nothing more from her.

“And quite right. But if you
were
to choose a girl, you should go for one like that.”

“Mother!” I protest, but I do not really mind. It is a long time since we’ve talked like this.

“All right, all right. Anyway, I approve. There is a color to your cheeks tonight, and I do not think it’s just the cold. I think they’re good for you.”

And I think perhaps she’s right.